Pasighat : The oil palm plants in East Siang district are on the “yielding” stage as fresh fruit bunches (FFB) collected from the gardens are being supplied to the Patanjali oil factory in Andra Pradesh every month.

The oil palm cultivation project in the district was introduced in April 2016, after the state government signed an MOU with the M/s Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd (presently known as Patanjali Food Ltd) for the production and promotion of oil palm cultivation in the district and industrialization of the oil palm produces.

Initially, oil palm was planted on 230 hectares in the East Siang district covering barren lands of Pasighat, Mebo, Sille-Oyan Ruksin, and Bilat agriculture circles.

The agriculture department, which is the nodal agency of the project, kept a target to cover plantations in 40,000 hectares of area and encouraged the local horticulturists to adopt oil palm cultivation for economic gain.

Presently, oil palm plantations have been expanded to over 11,000 hectares in the district, which falls under Zone-III potential area. The company has also developed two oil palm nurseries-one at Pasighat six miles away and the other in the Industrial Growth Centre (IGC) at Niglok thereby supplying saplings to interested farmers.

District Agriculture Officer (DAO) of East Siang, Opang Moyong observes that abundant growth of the palm plants is showing an economic prospect for the local horticulturists.

Moreover, the rapid expansion of coverage area in the region indicates that there would be a rich contribution towards the country’s edible oil production.

Meanwhile, the State’s agriculture department has selected four zones for oil palm cultivation and identified 1.26 lakh (approximately) hectares of land covering nine districts viz; East Siang, Lower Siang, Kamle, Pampapare, Pakke Kesang, Lower Dibang Valley, Namsai, Tirap and Changlang.

East Siang district, which falls under Zone-III potential area, has a target to expand the plantation to 40,000 hectares.

Patanjali Foods Ltd, erstwhile Ruchi Soya Industries, is setting up an oil palm factory in Industrial Growth Centre at Niglok (Ruksin) for the extraction of edible oil from fruit butches. The construction works with the installation of powerhouses and manufacturing units are nearing completion.

Besides Patanjali Food Ltd, two other Indian Companies — Shivasaise Oil Palm Pvt Ltd of Andhra Pradesh) and Oil Palm Agrotech Pvt Ltd of Hyderabad is also entrusted with the promotion and industrialisation of palm oil in the state.

The palm oil project aims at self-sufficiency in the field of edible oil and saves annual foreign exchange of Rs 60,000 crore to Rs 70,000 crore that the country spends in procuring edible oil from Malaysia and Indonesia.